Online gambling to be attached to defense bill???- article Uh oh!!!

[StellarWind]

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Neteller is not in any way a credit card. A credit card represents a bank willing to give you line of credit. I use FirePay and assume that its about the same as Neteller. FirePay requires the funds to be in your account first before you use it to fund a poker account. Thats not giving credit.

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FirePay does extend credit and Neteller is the same unless I'm mistaken. They allow you to deposit at a poker site and begin playing even though there are no funds in your account. You pay the resulting debt by authorizing payment from your linked bank account. FirePay and Neteller then cross their fingers that there is actually money in this account and they will be paid. Sounds a lot like a credit card to me.

On the other hand, people with junk credit ratings have long been able to get normal credit cards from banks that require predeposit of 100% of the credit line as security. These banks are paying the merchant directly from funds on deposit.

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But I reckon Neteller and FirePay could be added into the new bill regardless.

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Quite right. A credit card is whatever the new law says it is. Strictly speaking I suppose it is conceivable that the law could not include Visa/Mastercard debit cards (again what is a credit card!?). In a fantasy best case scenario this could have the paradoxical effect of convincing some banks it is safe to start allowing debit card online gambling transactions. The major banks stopped allowing credit cards to be used primarily because the government intimidated them and not because there was any clear law barring it.

[Xhad]

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Neteller is not in any way a credit card. A credit card represents a bank willing to give you line of credit. I use FirePay and assume that its about the same as Neteller. FirePay requires the funds to be in your account first before you use it to fund a poker account. Thats not giving credit.

[/ QUOTE ]
FirePay does extend credit and Neteller is the same unless I'm mistaken. They allow you to deposit at a poker site and begin playing even though there are no funds in your account. You pay the resulting debt by authorizing payment from your linked bank account. FirePay and Neteller then cross their fingers that there is actually money in this account and they will be paid. Sounds a lot like a credit card to me.

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(speaking as a former bank employee)

Many checking accounts in the US have a service called "overdraft limit" where if you write a check for more than what is in your account, the bank pays it anyway and hopes you make a deposit to cover it later. Some even let you invoke it on purpose through atm withdrawls etc. Yet legally these things are not considered credit lines.

AFAIK the law is pretty specific about what is a credit line (and especially a credit card) and neteller is really just a bank account that happens to be online.